I know where I was born, but I don’t know where I come from. I know where I live, but I don’t know where I belong. I know what I call home right now, but I don’t know how to hold on to it. I dream of permanence, but is that just a figment of my imagination?
As humans, we want to know where we belong. But what if you feel like you belong everywhere? Doesn’t that also mean you don’t really belong anywhere? This paradox is something I’m sure I, as a TCK (third culture kid), am not alone with. Now, I know there are people around me who wish they’d had the life I have: Living in many places on many continents, seeing the world, meeting new people, learning about cultures and languages, and gaining an appreciation for differences. The tragedy in all of this is that I’ve had to say goodbye one too many times, while fearing that if I attempt to make lasting connections to places and people, it will one day be gone anyway. For the past 20 years or so, this has been my reality; a life in which I haven’t really dared to live in the here and now, because I know it will end sooner or later and then the inevitable moving on is eased by not having something to miss.
I had grown used to the idea of growing deeper roots.
All of this changed in 2020, when I did the unthinkable: I got married. If getting married doesn’t go against all of my aforementioned principles of psychological self-defence, then I don’t know what would. Suddenly, I had established some form of permanence, having also bought our first home together (neither of us had ever even owned our own place before) and moving in. Was my dream to finally be fulfilled? Did this mean that I could finally drop my walls and actually enjoy trying to define the word “home”? Hesitantly, I began to allow myself to feel a sense of safety in a place (Finland) I had actually never dreamt of making my home. If that wasn’t enough, we also felt like this was the right time for us to become three, and that’s what we became. Our amazing little boy has made me feel like perhaps this could be my home for the foreseeable future, as I had grown used to the idea of growing deeper roots. But, I think you know where this is heading.
During spring of this year, we concluded that what we once thought was a huge apartment had suddenly become very small. I set my mind on taking out my first mortgage and finding a bigger home, because, for the first time in my life, I also had the buying power (previously, only my more professionally established wife had this, so she’s the one who bought our first home together). Being in my mid-30s, having lived the life I’ve been leading, it’s not hard to understand why I had no economy to speak of until the past few years of full-time job. And boy, did I completely forgot about all my past fears, as I started looking forward to my first mortage! Then, in June, one door after another started slamming on us, and a sense of dread came down upon me once more. What did I do wrong? Why is the universe so against my growing roots that it has to not just tear up my plans, but completely shred it to unrecognisable bits? Am I ever going to find a home?
I have my own little family that I can call home
Grief is something I think most people associate with the passing of a loved one. But grief can apply to so many more events in life, and grieving over having to uproot and leave things behind yet again is something every TCK is acutely aware of. It feels really silly to say, but I actually grieved the loss of the idea of having my first mortage. It didn’t represent a physical house; rather, it was the ultimate symbol of permanence in my mind. It meant that I would’ve been tied to a place, job, relationships–all those things that could help me define where I belong. It’s now October, and I have made peace with my dreams of permanence, and understood that this is not the time nor place yet. Maybe in a distant future?
As we’re looking towards our next chapter, it is with mixed feelings of excitement and sorrow we’re closing a chapter we thought would be longer here in Finland. And that forces me to rethink what home actually is. This situation may look like what I’ve experienced before, but rationally, I also know that this is very different, now that I have my own little family that I can call home in a seemingly endless sea of uncertainty of where we might hit land next.
Finntrovert 
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